'The Teachers' Union Just Keeps Doing the Limbo From Year to Year to See How Much Lower It Can Go . . .'

Over the years, teacher union bosses have concocted a wide array of unseemly ways to make money off of teachers, but officers of the Clark County Education Association (CCEA/NSEA/NEA) union in Nevada warrant special attention for their creative greed.

As teacher and union member Chip Mosher explains in the commentary linked below (warning: salty language), recently the CCEA brass sent out a notice to teachers in the Clark County School District that they had to sit down for a benefits review withe American Fidelity Asssurance Co., or they could lose their individual health benefits.

Every time a teacher receiving this threat acquiesces and signs up for a benefits review, the CCEA hierarchy “receives a nice fee from American Fidelity” for drumming up business. It’s a good deal for the insurance conglomerate and for union bigwigs, but a raw deal for teachers who are under the CCEA’s monopoly-bargaining control, as Mosher vividly shows:

The pretext of this scheme is that they are trying to uncover teachers declaring ineligible dependents on their health benefits. However, it sure looks to me like a shell game to rake in money for American Fidelity and the Clark County Education Association, or the teachers’ union.

When asked if the union-backed Teachers Health Trust was using an independent insurance company to police teachers, a phone monkey at the Health Trust named Debbie said, “Yeah, it’d be fair to say that.” The union’s own documents certainly make it sound that way.

For several months, teachers have been being warned to set up personal appointments with representatives from American Fidelity, or face consequences. Teachers have been told to bring their tax returns for strangers to investigate. Some American Fidelity personnel interrogating teachers have been from out of state. On top of that, the school district itself has engaged in this madness by having school secretaries remind teachers to set up their “required” meetings with these thugs in our schools. Obviously, a teacher doesn’t have a prayer when Big Brother is everywhere.

The bottom line to this? Money. It has been pretty evident the motive is profit because teachers who have never declared any dependents on their health insurance have also been directed, in writing, to attend these demoralizing shakedowns. American Fidelity, which has reportedly been granted exclusive access (approved vendor status) to teachers, gets to pitch added insurance coverage to coerced, nervous teachers (which, the union documents say, they are free to turn down). Plus, according to union insiders, the CCEA receives a nice fee from American Fidelity for such special rights.

Also, as the union documents make clear, the meetings will also cover the “benefits of CCEA membership.” . . .

[R]etired teacher Sally Magnuson, a former three-decade union member and American Fidelity customer, says, “The teachers’ union just keeps doing the limbo from year to year to see how much lower it can go . . . .”